exposing threads: creating connections in teaching and learning
TRANSCRIPT
CHAPTER 1
EXPOSING THREADS: CREATING CONNECTIONS IN TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Robyn Henderson
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Address: Faculty of Education, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Toowoomba,
Queensland 4350, Australia
Telephone: +61 7 4631 2692
Fax: +61 7 46312828
Email: [email protected]
Lindy Abawi
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Address: Faculty of Education, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Toowoomba,
Queensland 4350, Australia
Telephone: +61 7 4631 1680
Fax: +61 7 46312828
Email: [email protected]
Joan M. Conway
1
University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Address: Faculty of Education, University of Southern Queensland, West Street, Toowoomba,
Queensland 4350, Australia
Telephone: +61 7 4631 2350
Fax: +61 7 46312828
Email: [email protected]
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INTRODUCTION
We know that education in today’s world is a complex and valued enterprise. Whatever way we
look at education, we cannot but see connections to other aspects of life. Indeed, the mission of
education has been described as ensuring that “all students benefit from learning in ways that
allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life” (The New London
Group, 1996, p. 60). This inextricable linking of education, society, and citizenship underpins the
operations of educational institutions, the learning that students do, and the work of those who
teach. Education does not, and cannot, operate in a vacuum. Without connections to other aspects
of the cultural and social world, it would have no purpose and would probably cease to exist.
And, if we turn our focus away from the role that education plays in the cultural and social fabric
of society and consider how education works to shape and mould individuals, we are also faced
with a plethora of inter-relationships and connections. Cognitive growth, emotional
development, transitions within and between educational sectors, and linkages between
theoretical and practical knowledges are just some of the associations that we might make. It is
simply impossible to ignore the connected nature of education.
It is this connectedness that is the particular focus of Creating connections in teaching and
learning. The book extends conversations that began at a symposium conducted by a group of
early career and postgraduate researchers at the University of Southern Queensland in 2008.
Whilst the presentations at the symposium were about research, it became apparent that many
were concerned with the scholarship of teaching and learning in a range of contexts, and that
there was a wide range of connections and synergies to explore. Following the symposium, the
conversations continued with a much wider group of participants. With the crystallization of
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interest in the topic of creating connections, it was decided to formalize the project and plan for a
book publication. The call for abstracts resulted in interest from researchers, both expert and
novice, from five countries, and from several sectors, including primary/elementary, middle and
secondary/high schools, vocational and technical education, and universities. Two workshops
about academic writing brought the contributing authors together in real time, although a range
of communication modes – electronic, telephone, and face-to-face – were utilized because of the
authors’ diverse locations. The book developed through a collegial approach that incorporated
the sharing of thoughts and writing, along with the use of peer feedback to think, rethink, and
refine developing ideas.
Creating connections reflects both early career and experienced researchers’ explorations of
where and how connections are created and fostered in a range of educational contexts, and how
educators might continue to grow such connections as part of their educational practice. The use
of connections in conjunction with multiple meanings of the word create – creativity, innovation,
production, and design – enabled authors to address a wealth of diverse and dynamic topics.
This chapter explores the role of connections in learning and teaching and exposes some of the
threads that are apparent throughout the chapters by contributing authors. We realize that the
notion of creating connections might encompass making links, crossing divides, forming
relationships, building frameworks, and generating new knowledge, and that it can involve
cognitive, cultural, social, emotional, and physical aspects of understanding, meaning-making,
motivating, acting, researching, and evaluating. However, rather than taking a broad approach,
our plan is to use two examples – one theoretical and the other pedagogical – to illustrate the
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importance of connections to education and learning. We conclude the chapter by discussing four
themes that we have distilled from the chapters: connecting within school contexts, connecting
beyond school contexts, making meaning from lived experiences, and developing virtual
connections. These demonstrate the connections that have been identified by the book’s
contributing authors as facilitating, or having the potential to enhance, teaching and learning.
EXAMPLE 1: THEORIZING CONNECTIONS
By understanding education as a social and cultural practice, we immediately locate it within
social, cultural, moral, and political relationships, and as part of the networks of social practice
that comprise social life. If we take Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s (1999) theorization as one
example of how we might make sense of the social world, we begin to see that social practices
are shaped, constrained, and maintained by the “relative permanencies” of social structures (p.
22), whilst at the same time they are practices of production, whereby “particular people in
particular relationships using particular resources” can transform social structures (p. 23). This
perspective recognises that social life can be constrained by social structures, while also allowing
for the effects of agency and possibilities for creativity and social transformation.
Social practices, then, can be regarded as points of connection between social structures and
individual actions. As an example of how we might think about education in light of this
theorization, we can focus on the work of teachers in educational institutions such as schools.
Teachers are constrained by government mandated policies, by the directions of their employer –
the education authority and more locally a principal – and by the ways of working and the
discursive practices that are valued and encouraged in that context.
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In Henderson’s (2005a, 2005b) research about the discursive practices that circulated within a
school and its surrounding rural community in relation to itinerant farm workers, their children,
and their children’s literacy education, it became apparent that the dominant discourses were
those that identified itinerant farm workers and their children in deficit terms. Most teachers
identified itinerancy as a significant issue impacting on farm workers’ children, and they
regarded the children’s low levels of achievement in school literacy learning as predictable
consequences of the families’ lifestyles. They often identified the parents as culpable for the
problems or difficulties that the children experienced at school. These stories were similar to the
negative stories about farm workers that were circulating in the community surrounding the
school – stories that tended to regard itinerant farm workers as bad citizens and negligent or
inadequate parents. What is notable about deficit logic such as this is that ‘the problem’ is
identified as being outside the school and beyond the control of teachers. From this perspective,
it seems logical, commonsense, and ‘normal’ to look for ways that will ‘fix up’ itinerant students
within the school context. In taking up such views, teachers have only a limited range of options
for making a difference to children’s learning, and remediation seems like a sound response. In
other words, contextual connections have constrained teachers and narrowed their options.
In contrast to the majority of teachers who drew on deficit discourses to make sense of itinerant
students, there was a small number of teachers who seemed to resist the dominant stories and
explanations. They made resistant readings of the itinerant farm workers’ children and, as
Henderson (2007, 2008) explained, they identified positive attributes as starting points for
learning and they worked to find ways of engaging the students in classroom activities. These
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teachers were doing what Kamler and Comber (2005) described as “the kind of pedagogic,
curriculum and people work” that is necessary for “connecting and reconnecting” students to
learning (p. 7). In focusing on students’ strengths and using these strengths as productive
resources, these particular teachers were enabled rather than constrained.
In explaining the relationship between the macro level of social structure and the micro level of
social action as dialectical – as operating in both directions, and as constraining and enabling at
the same time – this theorization often draws criticism because of its circularity (Harvey, 1996).
However, it does help to make sense of the dynamic and tentative nature of connections and to
remind us that educational practice is always contextually situated and open to change. Whilst
the constraints imposed by contextual factors might sometimes seem daunting, and this might
suggest that social change cannot be achieved, the potential for agency offers hope that
transformative action is possible.
As part of their theorization, Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) also argued that the relationship
between social structure and social action is mediated by the six elements or ‘moments’
described by Harvey (1996) – discourse/language, power, social relations, material practices,
institutions/rituals, and beliefs/values/desires. The relationship amongst these is also
conceptualized as dialectical. To explain this, Chouliaraki and Fairclough argued that “discourse
is a form of power, a model of formation of beliefs/values/desire, an institution, a mode of social
relating, a material practice,” while “conversely, power, social relations, material practices,
beliefs, etc. are in part discourse” (p. 6). Overall, this theorization of the social world
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foregrounds a dynamic web of connections. It also offers a way of explaining how social life
might be changed or transformed and a way of interpreting the changes that are evident.
In this section, we have taken Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s (1999) work and used an empirical
example to consider how their theorization might be used to explain the social world and
educational practice. What was evident was that the teachers in the example from Henderson’s
(2005a, 2005b, 2007, 2008) research were connecting with available discourses, with students,
with student learning, with curriculum and pedagogy, and so on. Without these connections,
learning and teaching would not have been occurring. Yet it was also evident that different types
of connections had differential effects, as in the case of connecting with deficit discourses or
with less dominant discourses. Connections were shown to have an important role in the social
practices of education and in society more generally.
EXAMPLE 2: CONSIDERING PEDAGOGICAL CONNECTIONS
We move now to a brief discussion of pedagogical connections. For many teachers, this is the
area where connections within and between teaching and learning are recognized and enacted.
Most teachers are cognizant of the inter-connections amongst curriculum, pedagogy, and
assessment, and they work to align them. However, recent work in the area of ‘new learning’
(see Kalantzis & Cope, 2008) has started to tease out a detailed list of pedagogical connections
that offer a much wider appreciation of connections to enhance learning.
In the mid 1990s, the work of The New London Group (1996) identified pedagogy as “a teaching
and learning relationship that creates the potential for building learning conditions leading to full
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and equitable social participation” (p. 9). The complexity of this relationship was highlighted by
Alexander (2008), who argued that pedagogy includes the performance of teaching, along with
“the theories, beliefs, policies and controversies that inform and shape it” (p. 3). Whatever way
we look at it, pedagogy does not stand alone, but it relies on making connections that link
teaching and learning. Pedagogy is interactive (Murphy, 2008), and its connections with other
aspects of learning and teaching are important.
Although learning might occur anywhere and at any time, considerations of pedagogy are usually
in relation to the formal learning that occurs in educational institutions. It is therefore
conceptualized in relation to the relevant curriculum and the assessment of students’ learning of
that curriculum (Kalantzis & Cope, 2008). Although The New London Group’s (1996) ideas
were founded on the ways that textual practices were changing and the need for a rethinking of
literacy pedagogy, they offered food for thought about ways that learning more generally might
be enhanced. More recently, many of these ideas have been expanded and elaborated (see
Kalantzis & Cope, 2008; Kalantzis, Cope, & the Learning by Design Project Group, 2005), and
this has fostered thinking about the need for “a broader view of learning” (Kalantzis & Cope,
2008, p. 8).
In proposing a way of thinking about ‘new learning’, Kalantzis and Cope (2008; see also
Kalantzis, Cope, & the Learning by Design Project Group, 2005) suggested a pedagogical
approach that incorporates four orientations to knowledge: experiencing the known and the new;
conceptualizing by naming and with theory; analyzing functionally and critically; and applying
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appropriately and creatively. In conceptualizing pedagogy as ways of helping students develop
processes of knowing, they indicated the necessity for creating connections on many fronts.
Indeed, each of the knowledge processes is about making connections of one type or another.
Kalantzis and Cope (2008) advocated that learning should involve making connections to prior
knowledge and lived experiences (experiencing the known), as well as to “previously
unremarked aspects of known objects, new situations and new facts” (experiencing the new) (p.
180). They also argued for being able to connect ideas with others – to “note similarities with
other things, or draw distinctions” (conceptualizing by naming) (p. 181) – and to “put concepts
together into chunks of meaning” (conceptualizing by theorising) (p. 182). Their
conceptualization of learning also includes a range of social and cognitive processes, such as
reasoning, using logic, inferring, predicting (analyzing functionally) and reading the world
through various perspectives (analyzing critically) (p. 184), as well as using learning or new
knowledge to get jobs done – “doing something in a predictable or to-be-expected way in a ‘real
world’ situation” (applying appropriately) – or to innovate or transform (applying creatively) (p.
186).
Effective teaching, of course, involves knowing how to provide learning activities that facilitate
the types of learning connections that Kalantzis and Cope (2008) described. Yet, just as learners
need repertoires of knowledges, teachers need repertoires of practices that will enable them to
teach effectively and to cater for student diversity. According to Luke (1999), the work of
teachers involves knowing how “to jiggle, adjust, remediate, shape and build ... classroom
pedagogies” so that they can achieve “quality, educationally, intellectually and socially valuable
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outcomes” (p. 12). To be effective, therefore, teachers need to be able to adapt and flexibly use a
range of pedagogies that are “transformative of practice” (Henderson & Danaher, in press) and to
facilitate connections that will promote successful learning. Andrews and Crowther (2006)
referred to this type of teacher practice as a neopedagogical professionalism, where teachers
create new knowledge, work by sustainable values, and build future-oriented capacities.
Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hammerness and Beckett (2005) and McNaughton and Lai (2009)
talked about teachers who are adaptive experts, those who change their practice in order to
improve it. In highlighting this quality, they consider the agility of teachers to demonstrate
adaptive expertise. This suggests further connections that play important roles in ensuring
effective teaching and learning. As McNaughton and Lai (2009) explained, “school professional
learning communities are vehicles for changing teaching practice,” and “educative research-
practice-policy partnerships are needed to solve problems” (p. 55). As has been emphasized
throughout this chapter, learning and teaching rely on the creation and maintenance of multiple
connections.
CREATING CONNECTIONS IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS
The preceding sections of this chapter have presented two examples of the role of connections in
education, one theoretical and the other pedagogical. These were offered as illustrative examples
of the importance of connections in education. In this section, however, we map a selection of
the specific connections that the contributing authors identify in their respective chapters, and
consider some of the connections that are evident between and amongst the chapters.
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The chapters focus on explications of how connections in educational institutions might enhance
learning and the welfare of students within those institutions. In exploring specific educational
contexts, one cluster of chapters investigates connections within school contexts and another
examines connections in educational contexts that have traditionally catered for adult learners,
such as universities and sites of vocational education. These chapters can be found under two
headings: Connecting within school contexts and Connecting beyond school contexts.
At a superficial level, some of the remaining chapters could have been placed into the clusters
already described. However, these chapters were framed differently, offering insights into two
other contexts for creating connections. Our analysis suggested that the topics of those chapters
were not so much focused on specific educational or institutional contexts in the traditional
sense. Rather, they seemed to be highlighting different types of connections that impact on those
contexts. One cluster, which we have called Making meaning from lived experiences, draws on a
range of experiences – those of the author/s in some cases and of research participants in others –
to explicate the importance of creating connections. The other cluster explores virtual
environments, which are changing how learning and teaching are ‘done’ by and in educational
institutions in today’s increasingly digital world. This final cluster – Developing virtual
connections – thus examines some of the specific contexts of learning that have been enabled by
technologies.
We now discuss briefly each of these four themes and provide an overview of some of the
connections that are highlighted within and between the chapters. In writing the first and last
chapters of this book, we have bookended the four clusters. In this first chapter, we introduce the
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clusters and their foci, and in the final chapter we reflect on some of the important connections in
the contributing authors’ work.
`
Connecting Within School Contexts
The chapters that comprise the cluster we have called Connecting within school contexts are
linked by their interest in the education of school students and the associated learning that occurs
as teachers and other educators work to enhance the learning of their students. Despite these
similarities, however, the chapters demonstrate a heterogeneity of ideas, strategies, and
pedagogies for teaching as well as varied approaches to research, within a range of school
contexts.
In Chapter 2, Hawkins reports on research that she conducted in conjunction with a group of
preschool educators. This participatory action research project fostered a working relationship
amongst members of the research team. It also connected early childhood educators with
pedagogical strategies that proved successful in enhancing children’s understandings of social
justice. In Chapter 3, McLennan and Peel, who were middle years teachers at the time of writing,
provide an introspective and reflective examination of the classroom environment in which they
were teaching collaboratively. Like Hawkins, they identify effective working relationships as
essential to productive and reflective teaching. Using a motivational pedagogy that they
developed, McLennan and Peel foster a range of connections to help their students become
active, inspired, and engaged learners.
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In Chapter 4, Casley offers insights into a school that offers an holistic education for students
across the full gamut of school years – from kindergarten, through primary/elementary, middle,
and high school. Her investigation shows how shared values are fostered across all stakeholder
groups, through character education for students, professional development for teachers, and a
program for parents. In this context, connections are created through effective communication
and a shared language about values. The need for effective communication is also highlighted by
Fraser in Chapter 5. Fraser offers insights into his success when working with a group of
disengaged middle years students and turning them on to academic achievement. He advocates
that teachers should listen to student voice and let students speak about teaching and learning.
Yet he also acknowledges the difficulties of doing this, arguing that the building of relationships
and trust plays a key role in success.
Trust is also identified by Scagliarini in Chapter 6 as an important element in effective
curriculum reform. Scagliarini’s research at an international school in East Asia nominates
relational trust as a vital element in building school capacity for reform. As in Casley’s chapter,
shared values played an important role, helping to enable staff to instigate change to the middle
school curriculum. Chapter 7 also looks at research focusing on international schools. In this
chapter, Davis investigates the change styles of teachers working in international schools across
the world. She identifies the implications of this research for a range of stakeholders, arguing
that knowledge about teachers’ change styles is important to international schools, where
students are often reliant on school staff for their stabilizing effects.
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In our earlier discussion of Chouliaraki and Fairclough’s (1999) theorization of the social world,
we talked about the relationship between social structures and individual actions and the
possibilities for constraint and enablement. Several of these chapters demonstrate the potential
for agency – for individual teachers and groups of teachers to effect change and to make a
difference to student learning.
Connecting Beyond School Contexts
The chapters that comprise the cluster on Connecting beyond school contexts are thematically
linked by their foci on educational contexts outside schools, in particular the contexts of higher
education and vocational and educational training. However, these chapters also synergize in
other ways. What is particularly noticeable is that the contributing authors tended to focus on
dialectical tensions that we discussed in an earlier section of this chapter.
In Chapter 8, Danaher and van Rensburg reflect on their experiences of supervising doctoral
students as part of their work within a university and on the doctoral student–supervisor/adviser
relationship more generally. In considering three alliterative components (shibboleths, signifiers,
and strategies), they identify positives and negatives – the dialectical opportunities and tensions –
in the work that needs to be done to create and sustain this relationship. Chapter 9 also takes up
the issue of relationships within a university context. Noble and Henderson describe a productive
partnership that developed between university support staff (in particular those working in media
services) and themselves (two academics who wanted to develop a multimedia toolkit). In
considering the positive relationship that developed, the chapter provides evidence that new
ways of working are possible within the constraints of institutional structures.
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While Chapter 9 focuses specifically on the characteristics of a successful relationship between
academics and university support staff, Chapter 10 offers a critical examination of another
university relationship. Zhou and Pedersen look at a university’s arrangements with overseas
partners, discussing the tensions that are evident between financial benefits and academic
challenges. Their data highlight a number of disconnections which, they argue, should be
addressed to ensure better connections and positive outcomes for all partners. In Chapter 11,
Parry, Harreveld and Danaher move the discussion to the context of post-compulsory vocational
education and training. Here too are tensions and uncertainties. Whilst the chapter offers an
examination of innovative approaches to curriculum connections, it acknowledges the challenges
and highlights institutional constraints and other contextual factors that can inhibit innovative
approaches.
Each of these chapters focuses on how connections might be achieved to better serve the needs
of students in post-school educational environments. The contributing authors acknowledge the
challenges and tensions, but they are unanimous in their search for productive pathways that will
build capacity, cultivate positive relationships, and lead to successful learning.
Making Meaning from Lived Experiences
In the chapters that focus on Making meaning from lived experiences, the contributing authors
highlight the worth of research conducted by teachers and for teachers in all educational sectors.
The chapters present a diverse array of strategies which have been distilled either from their own
experiences of teaching or researching or from the experiences of participants in their research.
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As with some of the earlier chapters in this book, this cluster of chapters highlights the
dialectical relationships that Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) described. However, many of the
chapters focus specifically on pedagogical considerations of various types, moving the
discussion towards practical considerations rather than dwelling on theoretical concerns.
In Chapter 12, Midgley focuses exclusively on the concept of the superaddressee, and how an
understanding of this concept might enhance the building of shared understandings and forge
better connections. By reflecting on his research with Saudi Arabian students studying in an
Australian university, Midgley extrapolates how an understanding of superaddressee might help
to create connections in dialogue across multiple contexts. In Chapter 13, Conway and Abawi
examine their experiences of a school revitalization project. They bring different sets of
experiences to their work (one as an external university-based facilitator and the other as an
internal school-based facilitator), and each presents her own perspective of involvement in a
collaborative school cluster. They conclude that school-university partnerships and clusters of
schools working together provide a means for effecting change and transforming schools.
Chapter 14 continues the focus on pedagogical practice. Kocher’s investigation of a teacher’s
practice of pedagogical documentation identifies links between the teacher’s way of working and
phenomenological research. As Kocher points out, the teacher was curious, speculative,
thoughtful, and reflective about her everyday work with children, documenting her own lived
experiences along with those of the children she taught. Kocher’s discussion foregrounds this
type of teacher research as a useful strategy of professional engagement.
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The challenge of balancing teaching and research in a university context is addressed by Baguley
and Geiblinger in Chapter 15. Through the methodology of narrative inquiry, they delve openly
into the challenges and successes that they experienced when trying to establish and work in a
newly formed research team with a membership of mostly early career researchers. Like Conway
and Abawi, they reflect on their own experiences and offer considerable food for thought for
others who are trying to do something similar. Like many of the authors in this cluster of
chapters, Hatai and White take up pedagogical considerations in Chapter 16. They investigate the
learning of English by Japanese high school students who undertake a study tour in an Australian
context. They found that the use of cultural knowledge in conversations between Japanese and
Australian students offered a way of stimulating cognitive and social links which would enhance
trans-lingual connections and second language learning.
Several themes emerge from this cluster of chapters. One is that teachers’ engagement with
pedagogy is an important component of effective teaching and learning, a point made strongly by
Luke (1999). Another is that teacher and researcher reflection on teaching practice provides
opportunities for the type of thinking that is likely to enhance teachers’ capacities to be flexible
and expert adapters of pedagogy (see Bransford et al., 2005; McNaughton & Lai, 2009). A third
theme is that successful teaching and learning engages teachers in agentic action. The chapters
show how teachers and researchers, either individually or collectively, can work towards
transformative action and enhanced outcomes, despite contextual constraints.
Developing Virtual Connections
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The final cluster of chapters, under the heading Developing virtual connections, examines the
use of technologies to facilitate learning and teaching. All four chapters focus on the context of
university teaching. The trend in recent years has been for universities to try to increase their
student loads and to capture a larger share of international markets. Technologies have been used
to enable the extension of study opportunities to remote areas as well as to international
locations.
In Chapter 17, Haggerty explores the design and development of an online course for
postgraduate nurses in New Zealand. Like many of the other authors in this book, she considers
the pedagogical implications of her work within an educational institution. In particular, she
explicates some of the challenges that were faced in offering online study and how the course
team worked to find ways around these. She concludes by suggesting a framework as an
exemplar for others working in the field. Chapter 18 moves the focus to first year undergraduate
studies in engineering. Brodie and Gibbings present some of the data that they have collected
over several years to examine the building of learning communities in virtual space. Their
chapter offers evidence that online environments can create and sustain active participation in
learning.
In Chapter 19, Redmond and McDonald compare the use of online discussion forums in the
discipline areas of education and mathematics. In investigating these different contexts, they
identify teaching presence, with its fostering of questioning, debate and justification, as an
important component of effective online teaching and one that is integral to active learning. In
Chapter 20, the final chapter of this cluster, van Eyk reflects on her personal experiences of
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online learning. Through an exploration of her experiences in two contexts, she considers how
online learning might make connections between theory and practice and how it might address
learning in different contexts.
In considering connections in virtual contexts, the chapters in this cluster address some of the
issues that are relevant to educators who use various forms of technology in today’s increasingly
technological and digital world. The four chapters address a range of pedagogical issues and ask
questions that are relevant to the rapidly changing contexts for learning that characterize today’s
universities.
CONCLUSION
The purpose of this chapter has been two-fold. One purpose has been to provide a context in
which the book’s themes are situated. We did this by exploring two illustrative examples, thus
opening the discussion and setting the scene for the chapters that follow. Through reflecting on
one theorization of the social world and considering pedagogical connections, we have framed
the field in a partial and open manner. Although we wanted to highlight the way that connections
are embedded in teaching and learning, we did not want to narrow or constrict how the ideas of
this book are interpreted or taken up. Our intention was to leave the way open for readers to
think divergently and to forge new meanings beyond those we have offered.
The second purpose of this chapter was to signal for readers the types of research, issues, and
considerations that the contributing authors have raised. To this end, we conducted an initial
thematic analysis of the chapters and we used this to cluster chapters. However, our clustering is
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but one example of multiple possibilities. Only some of the possible threads have been identified
by us. We see our responses as open to contestation and we invite readers to engage in an
ongoing conversation about other threads and connections in teaching and learning.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The editors wish to thank the contributing authors for their diverse ‘takes’ on the topic of
creating connections in teaching and learning. It is that diversity that has made our task so
interesting.
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